April 2nd – 8th – Arrival of Harrison Ford!
Greg Says……
Mon 2nd – Last night we found ourselves at this campsite at Leighfield Beach north of Christchurch, where we were the only campers! We parked on a site overlooking the sea, and after Alistair and I had bee for a run settled down to watch our movie on Movie Night! Some say this is the highlight of the week, and look forward to from the minute the film finishes the previous week!
Anyway, we awoke; well Lucy woke up at 7am to a brilliant blue sky with a beautiful sunrise over the Pacific. The rest of us stayed in bed, and did not get up till 9.30am….disgraceful I hear you say! I guess we are all so tired out with the constant move from campsite to campsite, so we stayed here another day. The day consisted of lessons for the children and reading for the adults……..I can’t remember when I spent the whole day reading! Alistair finished his book ‘Watership Down’, Rowena and I listened to the iPOD, with Row dancing to ABBA! Lucy finished her ‘Claire Francis’ book, and started and almost finished ‘Born Free’, and I have been reading ‘Nine Lives’ by Alan Deere, who was a WW2 RAF Fighter pilot (it’s really good!).
Towards the end of the afternoon we had some kicking practise with the Rugby Ball, and then the hardy ones i.e. Lucy, Alistair and Rowena went down to the beach as the sun went down to do some water colours……by this time the wind was cold, very cold!! I thought I’d catch up with the blog!
Winter is nearly here, and the sun disappears at around 6-6.15 pm these days. It can still be hot during the day, but it does get cold at night. The nights have been generally clear of clouds, and last night the full moon was out. It was so bright it almost felt like day! The sky is full of stars, there are some which we recognise from the North, but a lot in the South that we don’t, I suppose we don’t look at the sky so much at home?
Spent the rest of the week pottering around doing things around Christchurch. Greg needed a medical for his flying and then a blood test. We drove out of Ch-ch towards the Banks peninsular and found a lovely place to stay where we were the only ones. It was a bit spoilt as we were driving on diesel fumes as there are never enough petrol stations in this country. However we limped into one just in time!
Also did a trip to Hanmer Springs, about 1.5 hours north of Ch-ch. Spent the best part of a day reading while the children slid down the water slides until they resembled prunes and soaking in the hot pools which ranged from 35-41oC, al under a lovely blue sky.
We popped into see Will and Julie who used to live next to us in Bournemouth before moving out here a year ago. We just looked them up in the ‘phone book and turned up! We were invited to dinner the next day and spent a very pleasant evening with them.
Greg picked up Harry, Grandma & John from the airport on Saturday morning , took Harry to a rugby match that evening and then they made their way to Wanaka on Sunday.
“The Splinter Group”
Alistair, Rowena and I left Greg in Christchurch and journeyed towards Wanaka. We stayed in a POP for the night, the middle of a field next to someone’s house in the pouring rain! I didn’t go to sleep until 1.30 am, I don’t like it on my own!!
The following day was overcast and drizzly so we didn’t get to see Mt Cook as we passed, all the mountains were covered in cloud.
We did see 2 lovely, quite different lakes, L.Tekapo a lovely clear lake surrounded by dry orange/yellow hills and presumably mountains behind and L.Pukaki, another huge lake but this one was a beautiful opaque turquoise blue. The reason for the colour and cloudy appearance was the fact that it has very fine a colloid suspended in it from where the rocks are worn down by the glaciers.
We arrived in Wanaka in the late afternoon and unloaded to van, we have so much stuff!! We will have to have a garage sale before we leave!!!
Next day it was ‘normal’ household duties making beds cooking and shopping to be ready for our visitors.
Hasn’t Harry grown!!! He had a sore throat when he got here which made his voice sound really deep, but as it got better it wasn’t as deep as first thought!
Had a roast dinner, first in NZ, Beef & Yorkshire puds which were a bit burnt on the bottom, will have to get used to the oven.
Mon 2nd – Last night we found ourselves at this campsite at Leighfield Beach north of Christchurch, where we were the only campers! We parked on a site overlooking the sea, and after Alistair and I had bee for a run settled down to watch our movie on Movie Night! Some say this is the highlight of the week, and look forward to from the minute the film finishes the previous week!
Anyway, we awoke; well Lucy woke up at 7am to a brilliant blue sky with a beautiful sunrise over the Pacific. The rest of us stayed in bed, and did not get up till 9.30am….disgraceful I hear you say! I guess we are all so tired out with the constant move from campsite to campsite, so we stayed here another day. The day consisted of lessons for the children and reading for the adults……..I can’t remember when I spent the whole day reading! Alistair finished his book ‘Watership Down’, Rowena and I listened to the iPOD, with Row dancing to ABBA! Lucy finished her ‘Claire Francis’ book, and started and almost finished ‘Born Free’, and I have been reading ‘Nine Lives’ by Alan Deere, who was a WW2 RAF Fighter pilot (it’s really good!).
Towards the end of the afternoon we had some kicking practise with the Rugby Ball, and then the hardy ones i.e. Lucy, Alistair and Rowena went down to the beach as the sun went down to do some water colours……by this time the wind was cold, very cold!! I thought I’d catch up with the blog!
Winter is nearly here, and the sun disappears at around 6-6.15 pm these days. It can still be hot during the day, but it does get cold at night. The nights have been generally clear of clouds, and last night the full moon was out. It was so bright it almost felt like day! The sky is full of stars, there are some which we recognise from the North, but a lot in the South that we don’t, I suppose we don’t look at the sky so much at home?
Spent the rest of the week pottering around doing things around Christchurch. Greg needed a medical for his flying and then a blood test. We drove out of Ch-ch towards the Banks peninsular and found a lovely place to stay where we were the only ones. It was a bit spoilt as we were driving on diesel fumes as there are never enough petrol stations in this country. However we limped into one just in time!
Also did a trip to Hanmer Springs, about 1.5 hours north of Ch-ch. Spent the best part of a day reading while the children slid down the water slides until they resembled prunes and soaking in the hot pools which ranged from 35-41oC, al under a lovely blue sky.
We popped into see Will and Julie who used to live next to us in Bournemouth before moving out here a year ago. We just looked them up in the ‘phone book and turned up! We were invited to dinner the next day and spent a very pleasant evening with them.
Greg picked up Harry, Grandma & John from the airport on Saturday morning , took Harry to a rugby match that evening and then they made their way to Wanaka on Sunday.
“The Splinter Group”
Alistair, Rowena and I left Greg in Christchurch and journeyed towards Wanaka. We stayed in a POP for the night, the middle of a field next to someone’s house in the pouring rain! I didn’t go to sleep until 1.30 am, I don’t like it on my own!!
The following day was overcast and drizzly so we didn’t get to see Mt Cook as we passed, all the mountains were covered in cloud.
We did see 2 lovely, quite different lakes, L.Tekapo a lovely clear lake surrounded by dry orange/yellow hills and presumably mountains behind and L.Pukaki, another huge lake but this one was a beautiful opaque turquoise blue. The reason for the colour and cloudy appearance was the fact that it has very fine a colloid suspended in it from where the rocks are worn down by the glaciers.
We arrived in Wanaka in the late afternoon and unloaded to van, we have so much stuff!! We will have to have a garage sale before we leave!!!
Next day it was ‘normal’ household duties making beds cooking and shopping to be ready for our visitors.
Hasn’t Harry grown!!! He had a sore throat when he got here which made his voice sound really deep, but as it got better it wasn’t as deep as first thought!
Had a roast dinner, first in NZ, Beef & Yorkshire puds which were a bit burnt on the bottom, will have to get used to the oven.
posted by greg and lucy | 11:30 PM
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